Best Roller Coasters

Top-10 List of Roller Coasters in North America

Why do we love roller coasters? They are almost a perversion of the pleasure-pain principle. We are drawn to them even as they incite fear, get our hearts racing, turn our knuckles white, and toss us around mercilessly. Then we get off and jump right back in line.

Beginning in the early 1990s, roller coasters began their second Golden Age (the first was during the Jazz-Age 1920s when the wooden lattices dotted the U.S. landscape) and their numbers and variety show no signs of letting up.

Why do we love roller coasters? Who knows? But, it seems, we can't get enough of them.

TOP 10 WOOD COASTERS IN NORTH AMERICA

Number 10 Top Wooden Roller Coaster: Cyclone
Cyclone Coaster Review
Coney Island in Brooklyn, NY

Sure, there may be "better" roller coasters. To say it's not the smoothest ride is an understatement. (One fan I know likened the first drop to riding down the rungs of an 85-foot ladder.) But this classic is one of the originals and holds a special place in the hearts of fans. The Cyclone is nostalgic, yet surprisingly vital, after all these years.

• Coney Island Photo Gallery
• Wonder Wheel at Coney Island Ride Review
• Spook-A-Rama at Coney Island Ride Review

The Top 10 Wood Coasters List continues with numbers 1 to 9.

TOP STEEL COASTERS IN NORTH AMERICA

Bizarro (Originally known as Superman: Ride of Steel)
Six Flags New England, Agawam, MA
Speed, airtime, G-forces: This hypercoaster gives riders the perfect combination of everything a great roller coaster should have and never stops giving it from the moment of the first terrifying drop until it returns to the station. An instant classic.

Apollo's Chariot
Busch Gardens Europe, Williamsburg, VA
There's only one word to describe the steel hypercoaster, Apollo's Chariot: smooth. And exhilarating. And one of the best coasters anywhere. (OK, that's way more than one word. So sue me.) But the operative word is smooth.

The Incredible Hulk
Islands of Adventure, Universal Orlando, FL A launched roller coaster unlike any other. It must be ridden to be believed.

Tie:
SheiKra
Busch Gardens Africa,Tampa, FL
Griffon
Busch Gardens Europe, Williamsburg, VA
Busch Gardens Tampa introduced North America's first diving coaster, SheiKra. A couple of years later, Busch Gardens Williamsburg introduced the essentially similar Griffon, but improved on the concept by making the coaster's cars floorless. Busch Gardens Tampa then modified its cars to make them floorless also. The two parks now boast two of the most unique and wild coasters on the planet.

Nitro
Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson, NJ
Another hypercoaster from the ride wizards at Bolliger & Mabillard (also known as B&M), Nitro is incredibly smooth and pops with huge airtime. Not quite as smooth or as near to coaster perfection as a similar B&M creation, Apollo's Chariot at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, but close.